House Votes to Repeal Obamacare

In its first big vote since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives earlier this month, the House voted 245-189 to repeal Obamacare. Every Republican voted for repeal. The left’s party line is that the vote is only symbolic since repeal won’t pass the Senate; therefore, House Republicans are wasting their time.
Nothing, in my view, could be further from the truth. The Democrats jammed Obamacare through Congress during the small window of time when they had 60 votes in the Senate. They knew the bill was unpopular, but they also knew that the chance to set in train a government takeover of medicine might never come again. So they rammed the bill through, hoping that once it was enacted it would be viewed as a fait accompli, and believing that the electoral losses that would follow would be a sacrifice well worth making in order to plant the government’s flag in the health care industry.
At this point, the main argument in favor of Obamacare is that it is a done deal. We can’t repeal it, the left says, so we may as well sit back and enjoy it rather than making “symbolic” gestures. Eventually, liberals hope that opposition will die down. That is why today’s vote was so important: active opposition is the key to keeping Obamacare in play until such time as it can actually be repealed. Similarly, the fact that more than half of the states have joined in litigation to try to block implementation of the law demonstrates its questionable legitimacy. The next step is for the House to deny funding for the implementation of Obamacare. The effect of all of these measures is to demonstrate that the federal takeover of health care is not a fait accompli, not a done deal, has not been accepted by the American people, and that if conservatives and moderates keep fighting, we can roll back the left’s sucker punch.
A footnote: only three Democrats joined House Republicans in today’s vote. (The roll call is here.) The three Democrats who crossed over were Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, and Mike Ross of Arkansas.